Mar 2009 - Apex Minerals

Apex Minerals (AXM) bought the 3 mines of Wiluna, Youanmi and Gidgee (for its Wilson’s orebody) using scrip and cash, with the intention of treating the refractory (needs biox) ores at Wiluna. Production was expected to increase from ~110,000ozpa to eventually ~200,000ozpa, trucking ore from Gidgee & Youanmi.

However, during exploration at Wiluna to extend its perceived life beyond 1 to 2 years, AXM made a number of discoveries including re-interpretation of the existing Wiluna orebodies, such that Wiluna currently appears capable of filling its own plant alone for at least 5 years at a production rate of ~150,000ozpa.

Initially AXM has focused on the almost N/S striking East Fault Structure comprised of the East Lode area in the south, and the hidden Calais area in the north. Both areas remain open on strike and at depth with more than one lode, and the complete West Lode (parallel to East Lode) is still virtually untouched.

In the East Lode opencut, AXM has found that the historical over-reconciliation in the pit has been due to a previously unrecognised (or historically forgotten) hangingwall orebody that lies adjacent to East Lode, and may not have been mined underground, resulting in an initial open-cut block of ~400,000t @ ~4g/t.

At Calais (which consists of two lenses, with the 50 west of the 100), it can be shown that the gold mineralisation distribution appears to be “shadowed” or “almost duplicated” from the 100 lens onto the 50 lens, so AXM’s new Burgundy discovery on the 50 lens may also occur on the 100 lens.

Wiluna does have the potential to evolve into a significant goldfield, as it has all the required characteristics of different ages/events of gold mineralisation, in a number of different forms, and in a range of different host rocks. Wiluna is already over 5moz in size (4moz mined already, and >1moz identified in resources).